Are organ transplants possible? If so,

My sister and I were talking about a tiny, tiny, tiny chihuahua she met which has a MAJOR heart problem. When she went to pick it up, she could feel it's little heart struggling!! Bad hey! The owners don't think the dog will live long.

Then we thought "I wonder if a heart transplant is possible?"

If transplants are possible, what are you thoughts on a vet getting a dog or cat that was about to be put to sleep at a refuge and using that animal's organs for someone's beloved pet?

I don't think it would be a good idea. First, it would be so incredibly expensive that I can't imagine it would ever become common practice. And 2nd, I would hate the thought of ANYONE at a shelter trying less hard to find a home for a dog or cat just because if they "let this one go" it would save the life of another. You also have to think about the quality of life. Even if a life could be saved by a transplant, that just seems selfish that anyone would put their pet thru a major surgery/trauma such as that, just because they can't bear to let the animal die. Some things, unfortunately, are just meant to be.

Okay, hypothetical situation: Just say transplants were common place and successful but still quite expensive, say $5,000 -$10,000 (?) and you could afford it but just had to find a donor, and you had the option of a refuge donor, would you choose to go ahead with the surgery.

I think I would.

Or what if they used organs just from the agressive dogs they had to put to sleep...the ones that would never be adopted back out into society anyway. If that was the case, I would definitely be putting my hand up for an organ.

Aggressive dogs...I remember seeing something on a news report (forget which one) that said that people who received transplants took on some characteristics of the person who donated the organ! If that is true, obviously, aggressive dogs couldn't be used. And even if I could afford it and these surgeries became routine, I still don't think I would do it. It's hard enough for a human to go thru rehabilitation, knowing what is going on...I think it would be cruel to put a pet thru that. I am all for dying with dignity.

they do kidney ones. I linked an article from my paper a couple pages back about it. They were looking for a related donor though and having problems. Could you imagine the problems that would bring to shelters though. they would have to screen the good pet owners to make sure they weren't getting the dog to be a donor.

I find it hard, if not impossible, to believe that if you had somone else's organ, heart, liver, kindey, whatever , that you could receive some of the characteristics of the person sho donated the organ. I think some characteristics we can't change , and we're born with them, and others are the result of our upbringing and environment. I think if you took a heart from an aggressive dog that was going to be PTS, your dog would be no more aggressive than it was previously. I do think I heard or saw something a few years go about a dog having a heart transplant, but I dn't know where the donor heart came from.

This was on one of those news shows, like 20/20 or something like that. They actually did interviews with several people who had received organ transplants. One guy, for example, started liking some singer that he had never even heard of before, and found out that it was the donor's favorite recording artist. Another person started a new hobby, and it turns out to be the donor's hobby. Strange but true....

This was on one of those news shows, like 20/20 or something like that. They actually did interviews with several people who had received organ transplants. One guy, for example, started liking some singer that he had never even heard of before, and found out that it was the donor's favorite recording artist. Another person started a new hobby, and it turns out to be the donor's hobby. Strange but true....

Your vital organs (particularly your heart, all have neurons in them like the neurons in your brain that store memory and personality characteristics). When you have someone else's organ put into you, these neurons are still there and can still be active- this is my understnading of it, I will ask my mother later what the details are. There are many cases of people having organ transplants and ending up taking on characteristics, having new likes and dislikes and having memories that reflect the person that they got a transplant from.

As for your question. There are a lot of other problems that would stem from opporations like these. First of all if you are talking about animals that have been humanely eutanized- well- you have given them lethal doses of euthanol (which is obviously very toxic) and which will still be in the tissues of the decesed animal and will as a result be passed on to the organ recipient. The only alternative that I can think of would be to put the donor under general anaesthetic, remove the organ for transplant and then once the organ is removed, end the animals life- I think that this is a more complicated route and I think that it creates more questions of ethics.

I too agree that in doing this you are walking a very fine line in saying that the life of someone's pet is more important then the life of a shelter dog and that people are going to start to look at these animals are spare parts. As well, the issue of wether it is even fair to the animal to put them through a procedure like that especially knowing that the recovery will be extensive and that there is a chance that she transplant will not take and that they animal will die anyways and have suffered a lot in those last days.

Procedures like kidney and liver transplants are less complicated because the donor can donate an organ without donoating their life. I think that it is all a very sticky subject and not one that anyone will ever agree on- organ donation in humans (where the donor has died of natural causes AND has expressed that it is their will to donate and organ) is still cause for debate. Good question though :) I am taking a philosophy class that is about morality and ethics- maybe I will bring up this debate there in the future.

I've never heard of a transplant patient acting any different. If they are religioues thay may say yhey feel the person helping them but none of their charecteristics. Although that would be a scary movie and maybe that s whay so many people don't donate.

Joce, I agree with you. I still find it next to impossible to believe. Irionically, you mentioned that something like that would make for a scary mvoie, and I do reall seeing two movies to that effect. One was where the womean had received someone's corneas ... I think that it might have been the corneas of a killer, and she would see the murders being committed. Another was someone received another's person's heart and became like the person whose heart he had recived and the heart didn't come from a nice person. It was a couple of years ago, so I really don't remember all the details.

actually jose. It is a scientific phenomenon. My mother is a doctor and it was taught to her in medical school. There ARE a shockingly large number of nerons in vital organs and they carry memory- not concious memories like the brain does but memories of experience and nurture (as in trauma or emotions that are enviromentally affected as well as geneticall programmed. You are also getting the DNA of another person and so all of the nature things that go allong with that come too)

I'm a nurseing student. I deal with transplant patients quite frequently and never once have I heard its real. I look at it as its like someone saying they got abducted by aliens. Because it is the same tv shows that they have all these facts about. My heart doesn't hold any secrets of my life. Just the muscle. Even your eyes are like reflective pieces of glass. They don't hold the image,you brain does. Everything goes through the brain,nt the other way around. Then maybe I'd beleivie it.

Phantom limb pain is real in patients. I don't know if you are getting that confused with it in someway. I guess anyone could believie that the organs transfer reelings but its like believing in santa claus. the only way I may think different is in a brain transplant and while they have supposedly done them on monkeys I don't think they have tried humans:)

and they very well could have taught your mom that but its not what they are saying now. One year they say one thing adn another day its something completely different. But I've never even heard a single person speak of it as real so its not even soemthing I would consider as real.If you mean the heart will always have the off beat it did, that may be true but the patient won't recall the donors family or suddenly become mean because they were a killer. The heart is a muscle and thats what makes it pump adn that muscle doesn't change with a transplant.

you also have to remember how many coincediences(sp) there are in life. not only do new organs mean their body may reject things thay used to like,like food,but these people are typically going through a huge life change. It is just one of those things were you will find someone that picks up something that their donor did.

I go in tommorow night and I think i'm going to surgery so I'll get a chance to ask a couple docs and not just the ones on the floor. I'll let you know what they say:)

Joce, I totallyand completeley agree with you, but I am wondering if the DNA of the person .. or animal to keep it animal related ... hanges in any way. Another thing is that when one gets an organ transplant, one doesn't usually know who who the donor was, unless the the organ came from a family member. I had to chuckle about the alien abduction, because I do remeber seeing something like that too, one one of those shows. It was a Betty and Barney someone, who swore that they were abducted by aliens, and allegedly told the same story while under hypnosis by a psychiatrist. so the psychiatrist and everyone else believed the abduction to be fact.

two laughed at me and another one said some folk kinda medicine (like indians apparently) believie it can happen and they encourage the feelings and that is why it is documented anywhere. She also said they probally purposely give them choices that the donor would pick.